Review: Sony Xperia M2 has good performance and strong battery

With 4.8 inches, the screen of the M2 delivers 960 × 540 pixels, great brightness and color fidelity. To run Android 4.3 without choking, this smartphone brings a Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset 400 with four cores at 1.2 GHz, Adreno 305 GPU and 1GB of RAM.

This firepower, coupled with 8GB of internal memory (expandable by microSD), 8 MP camera, NFC and great design are sufficient to scratch the brightness of the “best cheap smartphone market”? It can satisfy the most demanding users without leaving that taste of “cheaper imitation” of Z2? Find out below in our review.

Design and footprint

Like the Xperia Z2 , the cheapest M2 is also a great device. Its dimensions of 13.9 × 7.1 cm just do not turn it into an uncomfortable appliance for the thickness of 0.8 cm (as in Z2). There is the same centralized side button to unlock the screen accompanied by the volume control. On that same side is also slot microSD card and SIM card.

Following the pattern of the market, the M2 also brings no physical buttons on the front face, incorporating the control of the Android screen and the system buttons. Fortunately Sony remained dedicated to the camera, which, besides leaving the registry access agile images, helps reduce photo blur button.

In Z2, the touch gets a very pleasant feeling of metal and glass, for reasons of cost reduction in M2 converts to plastic and plastic. The footprint becomes less comfortable and the material does not have oleophobic protection, being more susceptible to accumulation of fat hands.Fortunately, M2 slot for the SIM card is much easier to deal with than the Z2 and spends more security.

Even so, the M2 booking their own elegant design of the new Xperia that is hard to beat. Placed side by side, the M2 seems to belong to a superior Moto G, at least visually class.

If your idea was to dip in the pool this unit, give up. There is no protection against liquids or even immersion. But why not take the two glass surfaces, the M2 can be less prone to headaches with small falls.

Weighing 148 grams, the handset is light for its size, and even has good weight distribution, which makes it pleasant both in vertical and horizontal use. Not the kind of device that will leave you in pain by availing a movie on Netflix, for example.

In most pockets of the pants M2 Xperia will not turn into a nuisance. It can comfortably fit any front pocket men’s trousers. For women, generally with smaller pockets, the way will be to take the M2 always in bag, as it is too big for the back pockets of any pants. Incidentally, remove the device from the pocket in time to sit must become a habit since the flex to sit in various situations, the unit will undergo a lot of pressure that can even be disastrous.

Screen

With resolution of 960 × 540 pixels, the LCD panel provides M2 density of 229 pixels per inch.Although the resolution is not spectacular for a 4.8-inch screen, taking into account the current very high standards, the result is far above average.

There is a protection Gorilla Glass 3 but, as mentioned above, lack of coverage oleophobic leaves the screen more difficult to clean than normal. There are quite acceptable angles of vision, even for a TFT panel, and a fairly intense glow.

As the screens from Samsung, the Xperia M2 tends to reinforce the cold tones, giving a slightly blue tint to the image. This is not a problem, since in Brazil we are used to this type of screen that, for many, make reading and more comfortable use.

The response to touch is perfect. We did not find any difficulty during our tests, including corners, which are generally a weak point accuracy. Part of this accuracy can be confirmed by the multitouch test, which recognized up to 10 fingers simultaneously.

Software and Multimedia

With the disadvantage of still run Android 4.3, the Xperia M2 brings the traditional interface of Sony. Currently she is one of the fastest moves away from the pure version of the system, as well as Samsung. In this case the distance to the clean interface brings a number of advantages to the user, and a fairly clean look, nice and great customization options.

The main difference at first glance are the colors. Sony opted for darker tones, which enhances the contrast between background and text (usually white) and easy to read. One of the progress I miss most when I go to other devices is the interface to customize workspaces. Besides facilitating the organization of shortcuts and widgets, you can add as many areas as you want and define what will be the main.

On this screen you can also access the theme options, which change the color scheme of the apparatus and also your desktop background automatically. There is a certain nostalgic air that functionality, since it was very popular before the arrival of smartphones. Can change the look of the system without a launcher is, in my view, a positive point.

In the listing of applications, a sidebar located to the left of the screen allows you to sort the apps to your taste. The adjustment can be done alphabetically, of most used to least used, installed for the pre-installed or as the user’s disposal.

Another not very subtle adaptation was made in multitasking function. In addition to managing open applications for your thumbnails, you can quickly access applications running as windows, going over everything that is open. Are available: Active Clip, a kind of screen capture with selection area; Agenda; Currency; Favorites from Chrome; Gmail; Browser; Timer (stopwatch or timer) and Touch Block, a button that locks the screen. You can download other Google Play, but the utility of each is quite questionable.

Sony has tried to fill this smartphone with your standard application package. The most useful of all is probably the Walkman, one of the most complete music players to smartphones. Besides the visual, there are resources to share lists, see lists of friends and access the streaming channels, all the Music Unlimited service.

There’s also TrackID, which identifies the song playing in the environment à la Shazam beyond TrackTV, it should work the same way for TV programs. The big problem is the latter Brazil is not available, ie, even if the idea is interesting, the app is useless, unless you are traveling.

Another highlight is the Socialife, which brings together your contacts from social networking updates. Simply connect Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and even news feeds to receive news in one place. If you are in doubt about what to download, Select Sony makes suggestions for apps, themes and games.

To take care of possible problems, including Sony Xperia Care. This app collects support information like access to the forum, a “contact us” and lists of resolutions of known issues for the entire line of Sony products. Also gives to find the nearest authorized.

Camera

With a resolution of 8 megapixels, the camera of Xperia M2 makes photos with excellent quality and color fidelity. A weak point is the video recording. Even recording at 1080p at 30 frames per second, the autofocus is slow and fails to find the center point of a scene. The backlight adjustment (exposure and white) is agile, but can also become a nuisance in scenes with a lot of variation of exposure.

Fortunately, the photos, the camera does not sin as M2 in video recording. Even with the ability to manually adjust the camera options, the best is abusing the “Higher Self”. During the tests it did not fail to choose the best options for the scene.

Overall, the photos with good light conditions are clean, but there is a lot of noise when registering scenes indoors or at night.

In addition to the registration authority of pictures, the camera has additional features. For aficionados selfies, Portrait mode offers different styles to register their best expression. The options are: Everyday, Office, Natural, Gentle, Young, Classic, Beach, Party, Doll and Ballad.

The “Picture Effect” mode gives an artistic touch to images copyrighted. Can you choose between 9 different effects to make your photos more fun. Another impractical, but funny, action is the AR effect. With it you can insert landscapes or masks augmented reality. You can leave everyone with a hat, or create a scene with a dinosaur in the background, which moves in a prehistoric landscape. The effect does not always work as expected, since in certain cases the device can not determine the proportions correctly, but it’s still fun.

In general, the camera of M2 is very competent in recording images of everyday life and there is fun effects, but does an average job at recording videos.

Performance

The Snapdragon 400 Xperia M2 ensures an uncomplicated and quite agile use of Android 4.3. In our tests we found no slow or even crash. In simple tasks, navigation, use of social networks or games, can you forget that the device is not a top of the line.

The device also does not disappoint connection speed. The M2 is compatible with 4G (LTE) networks and also has Wi-Fi 802.11n, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, GPS with A-GPS and GLONASS and also tuning FM radio with RDS. 8 GB of internal storage, 5 GB available to the user and their applications. You can expand the storage up to 32GB cards.

In the basic function of a cell, which is linked to the M2 does a competent job. The call volume is high and very good definition. The speakerphone is not the most powerful, which can be a problem for anyone who answers a call at the wheel, for example. At no time during testing showed the device problem with signal reception.

Battery

With 2,330 mAh battery, the Xperia M2 provides a complete load day, with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi enabled. Among my activities did the basics. Sailed for Chrome, I used social networking applications, a large volume of exchanged messages (including audio, video and photos) by WhatsApp because of the World Cup and I used the camera to take photos.

For the 4.8-inch screen expected a lower battery life, but fortunately the unit surprised at this point. In my test video playback with Netflix, Bluetooth, NFC and Wi-Fi enabled with the screen brightness and volume to maximum, the unit resisted for 5 hours and 15 minutes.

The device had an average duration of 11 hours of battery life, so without activating the Stamina mode, which disables background data with the screen off, or even low battery mode, which disables a number of functions to save energy. Overall, the power management of Sony is quite competent and can save you those moments of agony and low battery.

Negatives

Lack of coverage for the oleophobic screen.

Size can be a limiter.

Screen resolution below the competition.

Positives

Good battery life.

Great performance.

Screen with good brightness and contrast.

Conclusion

The Xperia M2 is a competent intermediary device. For its price of $899 , delivering a performance that can be compared to the top of the line appliances in several respects, in particular in everyday use. There is a missing or even something that can not be executed efficiently resource.

The problem for the M2 in the Brazilian market can be compared to some competitors, especially the Moto G 4G, sold for 799 dollars. However, the model from Sony features a sleek design, is thinner and can attract many for its camera interface and better quality for photos.

In the direct fight, perhaps lacking the M2 an update to Android 4.4 to become more competitive.Anyway, the device has many features to make the user satisfied.